Soil Placement for U.S. Base Relocation in Okinawa to Start Dec. 14

Tokyo, Dec. 3 (Jiji Press)--Japanese Defense Minister Takeshi Iwaya said Monday the government will start the placement of soil in landfill work off the Henoko coastal district in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, on Dec. 14 in a controversial U.S. military base relocation project.
Since it would be difficult to restore the original state of the site once the soil placement work starts, the government's decision is widely expected to escalate the Tokyo-Okinawa conflict over the project to move the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma air base, currently in a densely populated district in Ginowan, Okinawa, to a replacement facility to be built off Henoko.
The Okinawa government is demanding that the base be moved out of the southernmost Japan prefecture.
Iwaya told reporters that his ministry's Okinawa Defense Bureau submitted to the Okinawa prefectural government on Monday a document setting out a plan to start the soil placement on Dec. 14.
Initially, soil for land reclamation was planned to be carried from a port in the town of Motobu in northern Okinawa.